Halloween at Our House (and New Black & White Faves From IKEA!)

Hi guys! With all of the One Room Challenge craziness I’m really missing sharing more of my regular what’s-going-on-at-my-house posts with you all so even though it’s only one day before Halloween, I wanted to share a few quick shots of our home decorated for the holiday. I went simple this year. Like SUPER simple. (post includes affiliate links – see my full disclosure statement {here})

For our front porch, I kept everything the same from how I’ve had it decorated for the past few months other than swapping out my wreath and doormat for the spooky ones that I used last year and adding an animated cat (because what’s Halloween without at least a little bit of tackiness?!):

Can you tell that Hope is a little wary of that spooky sucker? She doesn’t take her eyes of it when she’s on our front porch – can’t blame her because it’s quite a bit bigger than she is! 

Inside our house there are a few creepy critters (rats and spiders) scattered about and a pretty emaciated guest hanging out in our dining room:

He’s lifesize and posable and I’ve definitely had a little more fun than is probably normal moving him around into different positions. He was a Target find but I think they’re pretty wiped out of them by now – I found a similar one {here} that gets great reviews and is already marked down from what it was when I was searching for one two weeks ago.

Since our trick-or-treaters won’t be able to see our creepy guest where he’s currently hanging out in the dining room, the plan is to have him “welcome” them down our front walkway by positioning him on our arbor:

It’s the perfect spooky spot since our poor arbor is one its last legs and looking like it belongs in a haunted house at this point!

Our plans for the day today include carving up a pumpkin or two since we haven’t gotten to that yet. My youngest daughter has done the most unbelievable, intricate pumpkin carvings the past few years. Have you guys ever tried doing one? I wrote a post on free pumpkin carving patterns few years back (you can find it {here}) that I recently updated with all sorts of new ones. You simply print the pattern, adhere it to your pumpkin, and cut away – something fun to try in case you’re late carvers like us and looking for a few new ideas!

And on a completely unrelated note, I was at IKEA last week (where I scored big for my One Room Challenge room – more on that on Wednesday!) and fell in love with their new SALLSKAP collection. It’s one of their limited collections that won’t be here for long so I wanted to share it with you. Its full of black and white goodness (and a few other colors too but of course I heart the B & W). I picked up this great SALLSKAP lumbar pillow cover for all of $10!

I snagged a few other goodies too like some throws, napkins, and even some fabric pieces (that reverse from the dots on one side to dog shapes on the other) that will work great for decorating a table, making pillows, or so many other things:

A few of the other pieces in this line that caught my eye were their painted bowls and side plates that are white with either green or black – so simple and cute:

And there were a few cool furniture pieces too – my favorite is this pretty black glass cabinet:

You can shop IKEA’s entire SALLSKAP line {here} – definitely makes a little jaunt to IKEA worthwhile (well, that and the meatballs…). And while I was there, I learned that IKEA recently changed their return policy so that you now have a full year to make returns – I’m pretty psyched about that because I’ve missed that 90 deadline a few times before.

And one last thing before I head off to start working on hanging up all of the art around the TV in our family room (it’s going to be quite a job!) – I’ve added some great new holiday finds (both Thanksgiving and Christmas) to Driven by Decor’s shop page and will keep doing so as I find new things so be sure to check it out {here} and keep coming back throughout the holiday season!

Enough randomness from me for one day – enjoy the rest of your Sunday and happy (one day early) Halloween!